


Dissect It and Rewind

by ghostwriterofthemachine



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe- GTA, Backstory, Betrayal, Fake AH Crew, Multi, Mystery, Off-screen Character Death, Past Abuse, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Prostitution, Street Kids, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7404883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostwriterofthemachine/pseuds/ghostwriterofthemachine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Bragg launders money, fixes cars, and gives prostitutes coffee. Doing the latter of those three things sets off a chain reaction that has him calling someone he thought he had burned his bridges with years ago, after a betrayal he still hasn't forgiven.</p><p>Jeremy Dooley has climbed his way to the top tier of the Fake AH Crew, and now is making a name for himself as a member of their inner circle. But he still sits an outsider to an incredibly intimate relationship, battling his own emotions and trying to fill (and not fill) the shoes of a dead man. The last thing he expects is a phone call from his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to [Dogskull](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogskull/pseuds/Dogskull) , who read my ramblings about this idea and assured me that someone would probably read it. 
> 
> And I think I'll fall back on the old bandom warning: if you found this by googling yourself or someone you know, you might want to click back immediately, or read at your own risk. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The guts of a broken car never ceased to be a fascinating puzzle to Matt. Grease smudged onto his fingers as he traced them over the engine cover of a 1996 Corvette (which was one of those cars he found pretty ridiculous, but at the same time completely understood why people coveted them as much as they did). He traced the manifold with his thumb and the sparkplugs with his eyes, trying to determine where the circuit went wrong.

That’s all fixing anything was, in the end. Figuring out where the circuit went wrong.

A strand of hair escaped both his ponytail and the bandana tied around his head and fell into his eyes. Matt flicked it away, wiped the grease on his fingers off onto his jeans, and reached behind him for a wrench. He heard the door to the garage open up, but didn’t turn around.

“Adam?” he called, absorbed in his work, “that you?”

There wasn’t an answer for three seconds, four. The footsteps approached Matt’s still-turned back. They were too light to be Adam’s, he realized suddenly. Too light to be Adam’s, too steady to be Joel’s.

Fuck.

Matt spun around suddenly, lifting the wrench in his hand to bludgeon the intruder, but it was too late. The man swung his pistol at Matt’s wrist, hitting the joint with crippling force. Matt hissed through his teeth, and his weapon fell out of his hand with the ringing finality of a metallic _clang._

Matt attempted to shove an elbow into the man’s face, a knee to his groin, but the stranger was too close to him already and the fight was already lost. Two leather-gloved hands clenched around his shoulders and yanked him around, pinning him to the wall of the garage. The gun was aimed at his face. The man was huge, beefy, with an angular face like the villain in an old Bond movie and a tattoo of a crosshairs on his neck. He pressed Matt further into the wall, and bared his teeth in a feral grin that was no doubt meant to be intimidating. But Matt had grown up on the streets of Los Santos- he was a skinny fucker, sure, but it took more than a god-damned handgun to intimidate him.

“Let me guess,” Matt said, in as deadpan a voice as he could manage, “I didn’t put a little tree air freshener in your car after I gave it a new paint job.”

The gun was shoved into the tender place below his ear.

“No?” Matt swallowed past the lump in his throat, forced a grin. “Wrong color, then?”

The man leaned into him. He smelled like expensive cigarettes, gunpowder, and the foulness of blood on leather.

“Listen here,” he said, in a voice like nails in a coffee can, “you keep your fucking greasy nose away from where it doesn’t belong, you understand me?”

Matt glared back at him. “No, sorry, can’t say I understand at all.”

The stranger leaned in closer. “You,” he said, “have a fondness for whores, don’t you?”

Matt let nothing show in his expression. The piece of hair that had fallen into his face before drifted there again.

He did not have a _fondness for whores_ , not the sneering way this asshole implied it. He didn't seek them out. He didn't pay for sex. But maybe, maybe, Matt had a soft spot for the too-thin, sunken-eyed youths who worked the corners around the garage. He might have had quiet kind of sympathy the girls and boys who stood out in the cold dressed in tiny shorts and tinier tops, shivering. He also definitely had a worn-out couch in the back room of the garage, a warm fleece throw, and a hot plate.

Matt couldn’t offer them much, but he could offer them coffee, warmth, and a promise that he’d wake them up after a 15- minute nap. Matt had never been them, during his time on the streets, but he was close enough to know how much something small could help. When there was a deficit of it, even the smallest amount of kindness meant the world.

He wasn’t trying to _give back_ to this god-forsaken city or anything, fuck that. But maybe it made him feel better, a little bit, to be the person who could have saved 17-year-old him.

“I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” Matt said coldly. He let his eyes wander around the minimalistic garage. “Do I look like someone who has cash to blow on prostitutes?”

The gun presses a more insistent kiss to his skin. “Let’s not play this game, boy-o,” the man said. “I know your fucking type. You like to think you’re some kinda do-gooder, but you’ve got survival instincts through the fucking nose. Now, you’re going to tell me where the info that bitch slipped you is, and we won’t have any more problems.” 

“You’re high off your mind, man,” Matt snapped. “You’re spitting crazy talk. You’ve either got your head in your ass or in some kind of spy novel!”

The heavy ham-fist that struck his jaw shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise to him as it was. 

“I’m gunna walk out of here now, kid,” the man growled, “and then you’ve got three days. Three days to cough up that fucking information, then I’m back here again, and if you don’t have it? This whole place is going to burn to the ground, with you and the other two fags in it. Maybe a few of the whores you’re so fond of as well, just for good measure.” 

The man shoved Matt back roughly, so his head slammed against the wall hard enough to disorientate. Matt hissed through his teeth and cradled his skull, sliding to the ground as the man’s grip on him finally released. His ears were ringing. 

“Two days, punk,” the man snarled. “Two days, or you and everyone you’ve ever fucking spoken to is dead. Do yourself and all of them a favor, and stop playing the god-damned hero.”

The door swung shut behind them. Matt remained curled on the floor. 

He couldn’t tell Joel or Adam. That was his first thought- that neither of them could know about this. Because, while Joel wasn’t nearly as delicate as rumors claimed he was, there was a reason that he didn’t run with the big crews anymore. That reason was not that he was any less brilliant with money than he was in the old days. And Adam had gone into an early retirement because he legitimately hated the violence that went hand-in-hand with the kind of criminals he used to work with. The job had been killing him from the inside out. 

They were good to Matt. Sure, Matt offered his own significant number of skills to their little operation, but they were still _good to him_ in ways very few people had been good to him before. Adam asked about his cat and invited him to dinner, and Joel helped him evade his taxes in increasingly creative ways, and- fuck, they were so _good_ to him, and the last thing he was going to do was repay them for that by bringing them into this kind of trouble. Especially if this kind of trouble could be linked back to him fucking _giving prostitutes coffee,_ Jesus fucking Christ. 

So he couldn’t tell Joel and Adam, was going to go out of his way to make sure neither of them found out what was going on. But he needed help. Fuck, was he going to need help. 

Matt was a techie. He could shoot, sure, hold his own with a knife if he had to, but he was the first one to admit that he was made out of toothpicks. This was obviously not something to be handled by a techie made of toothpicks. Everything about the intruder- his demeanor, his confidence, his tattoo- screamed that this was something much bigger than Matt had ever anticipated. Much bigger than anything he could handle on his own. 

But, at this point? Matt was small-time in everything but money management. He had cashed in all of his own favors to disappear four years ago. Matt had no connections. 

Well. He had one, theoretically. The thought of that connection, sitting half-burned in his mind, made him pause. 

Matt staggered to his feet. He half-limped passed the open maw of the car he was meant to be fixing into the back office of the garage. He took some ice for his aching jaw out of the mini fridge. Matt sat on the couch, placed the ice on his face, and stared at his other hand for a long time. On the curve of the inside of his wrist, he had the tattoo of a geometric cube. 

He walked to his desk, on the other side of the room. He reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out a small lockbox, clicking in the numbers to the combination lock. It opened easily in his hands. 

The largest thing in it was an old flip phone. It was still mostly charged, once Matt turned it on. He had plugged it in maybe two weeks ago, then turned it off immediately after the power bar had filled up. 

There was one number programmed into the phone, and Matt’s finger hovered over the call button for a lingering second. 

Well. Time to see how burned that connection was, after all. 

Matt hit _call._

.

“Jeremy! Jeremy, Jeremy, lovely _Jeremy!”_ Gavin sang out his name as if were the first time he had ever tasted it, and like it tasted of something that might become his new favorite flavor. “We are so rich, Jeremy!” He folded his arms over the shorter man’s chest and rested his chin on the top of his head. 

Jeremy chuckled lightly and twisted out of Gavin’s hold, keeping a light grip on his wrists as he did. “We were already rich, Gav.”

Gavin turned his hands again, took hold of Jeremy’s arms, and spun him in a circle. “But now we’re richer,” Gavin sang, “more infamous, higher above where anyone else has gone before- Jeremy, Lil J, you are _brilliant!”_ He released Jeremy’s hands at just the right time for Jeremy to land perfectly in one of the high-backed bar chairs at Geoff’s counter. Gavin was kind of magic like that. 

The energy in the room was indescribable. Adrenaline mixed with elation mixed with the satisfied feeling of a 10-year-old boy who had gotten a cookie out of the jar without being caught. The heist had been flawless the way few heists were, and Fake AH was already drunk on it. 

Jack’s hands found Jeremy’s shoulders, warm and calming and strong. 

“He’s right, for once,” Jack said, a smile coloring his voice. “You were pretty brilliant.”

Jeremy felt a blush creep up his ears. “I didn’t, I mean- I just-”

“Made a near-impossible shot from 300 yards away, saved the heist, and saved our collective asses.” Geoff joined Jack behind Jeremy, and he squeezed his arms just below where Jack’s hands still sat. Then Geoff moved away and poured a shot of whiskey that probably cost more than first 6 months rent of Jeremy’s first apartment, and slid it in in front of him. 

“You did good, kid,” Geoff winked, and toasted Jeremy with his own shot of the liquor. Jeremy knocked it back and the burn felt like victory. 

This must be what making it feels like, he thought. 

Gavin had found a new dance partner in Michael, and the two of them did something like two-step crossed with a tango across the living room floor. Michael’s beenie was slowly falling off his head and his cheeks were flushed candy-pink. 

“Dude, Lil J,” he called, making eye contact over Gavin’s shoulder, “did he just waste the good stuff on you?”

“Hey, if anyone deserves it tonight, it’s him.” Ryan walked out from the bathroom, toweling his face dry after washing his face paint off. “You’ve got a fucking gift for improv, kid.”

Michael laughed his agreement and said “Fucking got that right,” before he sent his dance partner careening into the older man. “Here,” said Michael, “Have a Gavin!”

Ryan caught him easily and faked a huge gasp. “Oh, my! It’ just what I needed to complete my collection! However did you know?” 

Gavin giggled and faked a swoon while Michael slinked across the room and hipchecked Geoff, and before long all four had moved over to the plush sofa set, drinking and soaking in the victory. Jack’s hand were still on Jeremy’s shoulders, and he squeezed one more time before grabbing another bottle of champagne and moving over there as well. Jeremy grinned and pushed himself off his chair to go join them, but then-- stopped. 

There was one spot left open on the couches. Ryan had Gavin sprawled long and lazy over his legs like a cat, and Gavin had his ankles crossed with Michael’s. Geoff had his arm around the back of the couch and therefore all of them, and Jack was half-leaning against his other side. The five of them seemed to be blurring at their edges, becoming one cohesive unit, a single thing. There was one spot left open on the couches. There was a sixth space left empty. 

That space could not be Jeremy’s. That space belonged to a dead man. 

The thought hit him like a bucket of cold water. His grin faded a bit and, slowly, a feeling of isolation grew. Jeremy was interrupting. This was a space for lovers. 

No matter how high up into the gang he climbed, Jeremy would not be that. 

He excused himself soon after, citing exhaustion a the reason he didn’t stay longer. He walked back to his apartment. 

It was probably unfair of him, to want anymore than he already had. He did, though. Jeremy wanted. 

He unlocked the door to his apartment, walked into him bedroom without turning on the lights, and stripped off his shirt. He needed fucking sleep, probably. Sleep, and a cold shower in the morning. Things would be back to normal after that. 

Then a blinking light made Jeremy pause. 

He kept the phone charged for reasons he didn't let himself look too much into. Sentimentality, maybe. He had kept it charged but unused for the past four years. In that time, it had not rang once, because only one person in the world knew its number, and it was the same person who held the only slot programed into the contacts, and that person never called anymore. 

His hands half-shook as he picked it up and looked at the screen. 

_One New Voice Message!  
From: Matt_


	2. Chapter 2

Jack woke up with Gavin spread on top of him like a warm, breathing shag carpet. His blonde head rested in the dip of Jack’s chest like it was molded to go there. They were the only two on the bed in the main bedroom, and the sheets were comfortably cool under them. 

 

Gavin’s hair smelled like champagne, gunpowder, oil, and the gel he used to style it. His breath created a patch of humidity on Jack’s shirt. 

 

He placed a kiss to Gavin’s temple, easy as breath, and carefully shifted him to the side so he could sit up. Jack had always hated staying in bed in the morning, because it made him feel like he was wasting the day. Gavin made a sound of sleepy protest, like a cat being poked out of it’s place in a warm patch of sunlight. Jack tucked the comforter around him in a nest, and stroked through his bangs until he was lulled back into a deep, calming sleep. 

 

Gavin always looked breathtakingly young when he slept.  When he slept, and when he cried. 

 

Jack padded out to the kitchen on bare feet. Geoff sat at the island already, wearing only a black t-shirt and boxers, the morning light casting his sleeves of tattoos into pastels. Jack pecked the top of his head, and Geoff leaned up into it with a content sigh. 

 

“Coffee?” Jack offered, and Geoff accepted with a smile. 

 

He made his own coffee- milk, two sugars- and Geoff’s- black and very, very sweet- before joining him at the island. Half a pot of coffee still remained. Gavin didn’t drink the stuff. Ryan took his with just milk, Michael with milk and powdered vanilla sweetener. Ray- and Jack’s hands tightened around his mug with the thought- Ray has taken his so light and so sweet that a sip of it would give most people a headache. 

 

Jeremy drank his black, strong, and bitter. He would also gulp it down when it was almost hot enough to scorch, as if he expected it to be taken from him in a seconds notice. 

 

Jack hummed. “What time did Lil J leave?” That part of the night had been partially swallowed by a warm daze of victory and alcohol. Jeremy had been there one moment, and a blink later he had been gone. 

 

“Dunno. Two, three AM?” Geoff took a sip of his coffee before continuing, “once we all started getting cuddly he bailed.” 

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess that figures.” 

 

Geoff glanced at Jack with a look perfected over years of knowing each other. “Do you wish he had stayed?”

 

Jack hesitated, then shrugged. “Didn’t you?”

 

Geoff sighed. “Jack-”

 

“I know, Geoff. Whatever you’re about to say, I can guarantee you I already know it. But,” he said, something else coloring his voice this time “didn’t you?” 

 

Geoff was the one who hesitated this time, before he sighed and inclined his head. “Yeah,” said Geoff quietly, “but I know, too.”

 

Jack made a noise low in his throat. “At this point, though, is there anything left  _ to  _ know? Why do they forget we knew Jeremy before...before? We were talking about letting Gavin go on a date with him then, because Jeremy was the only person he talked about for a week.  _ Ray liked him. _ I just-”

 

“Jack!” Geoff cut him off. “I understand, buddy, okay? I know. I wish it were that easy too, but-”

 

_ But _ , once a week, one of them would still wake up gasping and crying from dreams about bloodstained purple hoodies.  _ But _ , the first time they needed six men to run a job after... _ after _ , and Michael had seen Jeremy standing there, awkwardly holding a sniper rifle, he had screamed at Geoff for five solid minutes and stormed off, then refused to speak to any of them, even Gavin, for almost a week. He didn’t speak to Jeremy for longer.  _ But _ , Ryan still took a weekend a month to drive somewhere unknown to any of the five of them, predictable as clockwork, as if Ray were still here to go with him. 

 

“It’s not that simple,” sighed Geoff, as a bitter smile twisted his lips. “I’m not sure if it’ll ever be that simple again.” 

 

Geoff had his own set of concerns, ones that plagued him whenever images of Jeremy slipping into their bed came into his mind. What if one of them thought they were only bringing him in to replace Ray? What if  _ Jeremy  _ thought he were only there to replace Ray? 

 

And then, the thing that sat the heaviest on Geoff’s burdened mind- what if, even subconsciously, they  _ did  _ only want him to fill the gaping, empty space that Ray had left behind? 

 

Geoff rubbed his palms over his face. “We’ll figure it out,” he said to Jack, who sent a small, helpless smile back at him. “We always do.”

 

And then the somber mood of the morning broke as Michael entered the kitchen and demanded his own coffee, Ryan following after him with the intention of making omelettes, and both began making enough noise to ensure that Gavin would be stumbling out of the bedroom soon, rumpled and irritable. 

 

Geoff leaned back in his chair and allowed the now to sweep away his thoughts of the maybe-in-the-futures. 

 

.

 

_ One new voice message! _

_ From: Matt _

_ \--Hey, Jeremy, it’s-it’s me. Me being, uh, Matt, I guess, I- fuck. Fuck, I know it’s been awhile since we’ve talked, and I know I’m calling out of nowhere, but. Listen, I’ve got a situation that just went ass over teakettle out of absolutely nowhere, and...and if I don’t resolve it, people are going to get hurt. Not just me, you know I wouldn’t call if it were-...Jeremy, I need. I could use some help. And I understand if you don’t want to give it, but. Well, I figured I’d try. If you want we can meet at my job. I understand if you don’t want to get back to me, but, hey, get back to me, if you can. Thanks for listening, if not. Bye.  _

 

_ New Text Message _

_ To: Matt _

_ Address?  _

 

It was early the morning the next day when Jeremy pulled up to the address that had been sent in the return message. It was a small, well-maintained garage.  _ J&A Auto Repair, _ the sign proclaimed,  _ We Do Customizations! _ Jeremy pulled his car into the back lot- a worn, low-key 2004 Honda Civic he kept for practical purposes, despite the teasing it garnered from his crewmates- and stared at the back office door for a few long seconds. Then he pushed his shades up his nose, walked up to it, and knocked. It opened. 

 

Matt had grown out his hair, in the time since Jeremy had last seen him. It almost brushed his shoulders, and was currently pulled back in a loose ponytail. He had filled out a bit as well. He was still a skinny son of a bitch, but it was in a more settled way now, as opposed to looking as if his growth spurt had stretched him out too-thin like taffy. He was wearing baggy jeans and a wife-beater, an orange bandana tied around his head and grease smudged under his eye and on the pads of his fingers. 

 

He looked….Well, he looked like a mechanic. A real, honest mechanic who worked for a living and fixed cars. 

 

Jeremy was hit, suddenly, with an old memory of the two of them spending the night in a cheap, filthy motel, which they barely could afford with the money gotten from two days of picking pockets. He remembered the owner of the place trying to spring another 50 dollar fee on them, 50 dollars that the bastard had to have known they didn’t have. He threatened to call the cops on them if they didn’t pay up. Jeremy remembered Matt bartering his uncanny ability to fix things- one repaired air conditioning unit was their ticket the fuck out of there, and the next night they had gone back when the asshole was sleeping and graffitied something unflattering on the front of the god-forsaken building. 

 

This Matt in front of him didn’t quite mesh with the one in the memory, but they were close enough that Jeremy could almost smell the mildew of the motel. 

 

“Uh,” said Matt awkwardly, “hey.”

 

Jeremy realized that they had been standing there for half a minute, just staring at each other. He cleared his throat just as awkwardly. 

 

“Yeah,” he said, “yeah, hi, it’s-” he faltered, unsure what to say next. Matt cast his gaze at his own feet, and stepped to the side. 

 

“Well, come in.” 

 

Jeremy did. The back office of the garage had the air of a place well-loved and well-used. There was a sagging couch in one corner, a mini-fridge in the other, and a desk scattered with papers and adorned with a clunky PC in the center. A faded Halo poster, peeling at the edges, was tacked up to the wall, and another next to it for Outlast, with the words ‘FUK U’ scrawled on it in what looked like red sharpie. There was also a signed picture of the cast of  _ Friends _ , a huge blowup of an MC Escher print, a singing bass fish, and a bizarre, near surrealist drawing that seemed to be taking inspiration from old pinup girl posters, except instead of a hot girl posed on a car, it was another car. The red corvette acting as the pinup was drawn in such a way that you could imagine it’s car-hips cocked to the side. It’s headlight eye was winking. 

 

At any other time, Jeremy would have been delighted by the room’s blatant weirdness. At the moment, he had other things on his mind. 

 

“Do you want a drink?” asked Matt, who still hadn’t met his eyes. 

 

“Nah, I’m-” Jeremy swallowed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had this hard a time talking. “I’m fine.”

 

Matt fidgeted with the digital watch around his wrist. “So, how’ve you been? It’s-”

 

“Matt,” Jeremy interrupted, “Why did you call me?”

 

Matt seemed at a loss for a long second, before he exhaled and seemed to wilt when he did. “Might want to sit down,” he said, “it’s kind of a story.”

 

So Jeremy sat down on the couch, and Matt perched on the edge of the desk, and recounted the events of the day before. The man’s entrance, his violence, his demands, his crosshair tattoo. Jeremy listened with slightly furrowed brows. 

 

“He thinks you have something?”

 

“Some kind of information, from how he was talking, yeah.” 

 

“Well, do you have it?”

 

“Yeah, I know exactly what the asshole was talking about, and I just called you in for old times sake.” The sarcasm practically dripped from Matt’s voice.”No, don’t have any idea what he wants.”

 

“Did any of the hookers ever give you anything?”

 

“Most of them never even gave me their real names, Jerem!”

 

The tension between them, present since the moment Jeremy had knocked on the door and growing since the words  _ ‘for old times sake’ _ fell from Matt’s lips with so much venom, suddenly ignited at the use of Jeremy’s stupid, uncreative old nickname. 

 

“Why the fuck did you call me, Matt?” Jeremy snapped, getting to his feet. “You can’t even look at me, you obviously don’t want me here-”

 

“And you obviously don’t want to be here, asking fucking stupid questions like I’m some kind of idiot, like you think you’re fucking smarter than me-” Matt stood as well, his mouth twisting. 

 

“Oh, god for-fucking-bid someone is smarter than you, right? God forbid someone knows better than you, that would be the end of the world!”

 

“Like you’re any better! LIke you can be talked out of any stupid idea once it gets inside your  _ stubborn head _ . How’s life as a top-tier gangster, Jeremy?”

 

“It’s great!” Jeremy half shouted, barely aware of how ridiculous he sounded. “It’s awesome, and you could know that first hand if you weren’t such a  _ coward- _ ” 

 

“Coward?” Matt took a step forward, teeth clenched.  “Is that what you tell yourself? No, Jeremy, I just had one fucking limit, one thing I wouldn’t touch for any reason,  _ one thing  _ I would have rather died than have been a part of, and you couldn’t respect that or me enough to keep out of it! Fuck you and fuck your ambition, but congratulations on making it, I guess, how does it feel to be a placeholder for someone who died-”

 

Jeremy let out an incoherent sound of rage and rushed to close the space between them, his fist drawing back to strike. But Matt was just as fast, maybe because he was still on edge from the beating he had taken the day before, and his own hand flew up to meet it. They collided, Jeremy’s fist and Matt’s flat palm, and stopped each other short like a still from an action movie.

 

They stayed like that for a long moment, the almost-violence handing in the air and Matt’s hand closed over Jeremy’s. 

 

“Fuck,” Jeremy said, yanking away and ducking his head. “Fuck, fuck, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I don’t know what came over me-” 

 

“No, it’s fine,” Matt cradled his hand to his chest, his face turned away. “I was being cruel, I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

 

“I shouldn’t have gone to hit you. I’m sorry, that isn’t like me.”

 

“Wasn’t like me, either.” Matt half laughed, only a little bitterly. He crossed the room and flopped down on the couch. “Guess we bring out the worst in each other, huh?”

 

Jeremy huffed out a breath. “Yeah.” He sat next to Matt on the couch. The 6-inches between them felt like miles. 

 

They didn’t speak for a while, both allowing the tension to bleed from the room. 

 

“I called you,” Matt said softly, “because I knew you’d have resources that I don’t. And because the two guys I work with here are good people, and I don’t want them getting hurt. And because, if they tracked me down here, they might be good enough to connect me back to you, and then you’d be in danger from this stupid mess. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.” Matt’s head hung down, already defeated. He rested his head in his hands. “Sorry.”

 

Jeremy stared at him. He made a decision. 

  
“Okay,” he said slowly, “talk me through what the guy said again. Slower, this time. Let’s figure out what we know for sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The car-on-car pinup doesn't exist, as far as I know. I really wish it did, I would buy at least ten prints of it. 
> 
> Sorry this took so long to put out, and thank you for all your wonderful feedback ^_^


End file.
